SOS Médecins fears that the current price negotiations between Health Insurance and the unions of private doctors will lead “straight to the end of home visits” for the famous association. “Already today, daytime home visits are greatly compromised, due to failure to find willing doctors to carry them out. Many doctors prefer fixed-point consultations, which are financially two to three times more attractive,” explained SOS Médecins in a statement.
“Under these conditions, the home visit will not survive the summer”
“Discussions with Health Insurance seem to lead to a widening of this gap,” she added. “Under these conditions, the home visit will not survive the summer,” she predicted. The share of home visits has already been considerably reduced since the beginnings of SOS Médecins in 1966, when they then constituted all of the actions of member doctors. This reduction accelerated from 2019, and today, home visits only represent a third of their activity.
SOS Médecins fears being excluded from the scope of the revaluations and price increases planned as part of the negotiations with Health Insurance. Questioned by AFP, both Health Insurance and the doctor’s unions postponed questions on this point to the next negotiating session, next Thursday. In the meantime, SOS Médecins demands that “all acute care visits” be priced at 70 euros. Today, the price of these daytime visits is set at 36.50 euros.
The association is also calling for “the establishment of a penalty of 100 euros per hour” for doctors available to make home visits on call from the Samu or the access to care service (SAS), the new 15 which redirects certain patients to community medicine. “What we are defending is not an increase in purchasing power, it is the saving of a medical service which is irreplaceable,” its secretary general, Doctor Serge Smadja, told AFP. SOS Médecins is present in around sixty French cities, and has around 1,300 member doctors.